In California Race, a Latina Democrat Carries Hopes of Her Party and People

Amanda Renteria, a Democratic candidate for Congress, with supporters at a recent campaign event in Sanger, Calif.

Max Whittaker for The New York Times

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

May 4, 2014

SANGER, Calif. — “Ya es tiempo — you have a voice,” Amanda Renteria, a Democratic candidate for Congress, declared one recent Saturday morning at a park in this little city southeast of Fresno. There was no need to translate the Spanish. The park was festooned with “Amanda Renteria para el Congreso” signs.

As she told her local-girl-makes-good story — daughter of onetime migrant fruit pickers, degrees from Stanford and Harvard, a job in Washington as a senator’s chief of staff — men in ranchero hats smiled with pride. Women choked back tears. Candidates like her, they said, do not come around often in places like this.

“We have been waiting, waiting,” said Diana Rodriquez, a retired teacher whose parents also worked the fields here in the agriculturally rich Central Valley, in a largely Hispanic congressional district. “We helped Obama win the election, and they still see us to be passed over. This is going to help the overall national cause — respect for our community.”

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But if Ms. Renteria represents the hopes of her party and her people, she also reflects Latino Democrats’ deep angst. Seven out of 10 Hispanic voters supported President Obama in 2012, but Latinos — the nation’s most rapidly growing minority — are greatly underrepresented in public office.

“I have been troubled by a lack of Latino bench for the future,” said Bill Richardson, the Democratic former governor of New Mexico. He said Democrats take Latinos for granted, and have not been “as aggressive as Republicans in attracting and encouraging Latino candidates.”

On Monday, Cinco de Mayo, a new nonpartisan organization, the Latino Victory Project, announced an effort to promote Hispanic political engagement, in part by grooming Latino candidates; its political arm has endorsed eight — all Democrats, including Ms. Renteria.

Over all, 6,011 Hispanics held elective office in the United States in 2013, according to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. Most serve on school boards or in municipal offices, and of those who cite a party affiliation, 89 percent are Democrats. But at the upper tiers, that pattern is reversed. It is Republicans, with big names like Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida, who are winning the race to land a Hispanic on a national ticket.

There are two Hispanic governors: Susana Martinez of New Mexico and Brian Sandoval of Nevada, both Republicans, who lead a party effort to recruit Latino candidates. Just eight Latinos hold statewide office; five, including the governors, are Republican. Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey is the only Hispanic Democrat in the Senate.

A party staff member displayed campaign stickers in Selma, Calif., for Ms. Renteria.

Max Whittaker for The New York Times

“It is stunning,” said Henry Cisneros, former housing secretary under President Bill Clinton. He warned the trend is “very serious” for Democrats. “Because many young Latinos will say, ‘I want to advance in politics, it looks like the Republicans offer a route — and in some states it’s the only route.' ”

The reasons are complex. In conservative states like Texas, for instance, Democrats rarely win statewide, though that is projected to change as more Hispanics come of voting age.

State Representative Trey Martinez Fischer of Texas, a Democrat who leads the Mexican American Legislative Caucus there, is contemplating a statewide run, but predicts the climate will not be right until 2018. “For every Ted Cruz, you will find there are 10 Julián Castros in the party,” he said, referring to the mayor of San Antonio, a Democratic rising star.

Fernand R. Amandi, a Democratic strategist in Miami, attributes the rise of Hispanics in Texas and Florida to the Bush family, especially Jeb Bush, who mentored Mr. Rubio, among others. He sees Republicans as “more tactical,” a view shared by Gary M. Segura, a Stanford professor and founder of Latino Decisions, a nonpartisan polling firm.

“Republicans, in the absence of policies that are likely to appeal to minority voters, have decided to invest in faces,” Mr. Segura said. “Democrats believe they have the popular policies and they believe these are captured constituencies, so they’re not investing, and it’s crazy.”

Democrats insist they are investing, in candidates like Leticia Van de Putte and Lucy Flores, running for lieutenant governorships in Texas and Nevada, along with Ms. Renteria. Ms. Renteria, 39, was the first Latina Senate chief of staff, to Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan. She moved to Sanger in August with her husband and two young sons, in a bid to unseat Representative David Valadao, a well-liked Republican of Portuguese descent.

“I feel like I’ve spent a lot of my life being one of the few,” Ms. Renteria said. “I see it as my responsibility to bridge two different worlds.”

The race is a priority for Democrats in what could be a bleak year. Democratic donors and groups like Emily’s List have flocked to Ms. Renteria, helping her raise $630,000 so far, though Mr. Valadao has twice that.

Now, Ms. Renteria will get a boost from the Latino Victory Project’s political action committee, which intends to run television ads and a get-out-the-vote effort in key districts.

Co-founded by two top Obama fund-raisers — Henry R. Muñoz III, the finance chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and Eva Longoria, the actress — the project will “use our numbers, our votes and our dollars” to create “the next generation of leadership,” Mr. Muñoz said.

Its PAC is open to backing Republicans, as long as they support immigration reform, and is looking far beyond 2014.

Here in Sanger, though, Ms. Renteria’s race for Congress illustrates the challenges. In 2012, Democrats ran a weak candidate, bungling an opportunity to win this politically diverse district, one of the poorest in the nation, where Democrats outregister Republicans by 14 percentage points and Hispanics make up 55 percent of the voting age population. Ms. Renteria’s challenge now is to get them to the polls.

The cultural dynamics are complex. Mr. Valadao, 37, who calls Ms. Renteria “an outsider from Washington,” has deep roots in the conservative community of Hanford, where his parents, who emigrated from the Azores, founded their family farm. Despite his Spanish-sounding surname (he also speaks the language), the race typifies the region’s class divide, said Darry Sragow, a longtime Democratic strategist in California.

“There’s always been a real class dichotomy between the Latino farm workers and the farmers,” Mr. Sragow said. “We’re talking Steinbeck, a very deep divide.”

Grow Elect, a group dedicated to electing Hispanic Republicans in California, has embraced Mr. Valadao. “We’re starting at the grass-roots level,” said its president, Ruben Barrales, “because you can’t depend on superstars.”

Immigration is, not surprisingly, a pressing issue, along with jobs. Mr. Valadao is among the handful of Republican House members who favor a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, though Ms. Renteria accuses him of not pushing his party leaders to act.

The congressman says he believes his conservative politics on social issues like abortion and also on taxes, appeal to Hispanic voters, especially small-business owners who “work really hard for their money” and “don’t want to see a bunch of government guys regulating them.”

But analysts say the race will be close, and Ms. Renteria is working her way into Latino circles. At a Mexican-American dinner dance in Hanford, Mr. Valadao’s hometown, she ran into the parents of a Stanford classmate, and was invited by a local woman for a midnight meal of menudo, a traditional Mexican soup.

Earlier in the day in Sanger, the city’s former mayor, José Villarreal, introduced her. He said he had “a lot of questions” when she moved to town, but was won over. “She is a daughter of the Valley,” he told the crowd. “She is one of us.”